DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0050
24 THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
an oval silver basin, and the ceremony of putting on the little
fairy slippers, and the ceremony of dressing the hair
elaborately intertwined with pearls. When they went out they
wore diminutive masks to shield their complexions from the
sun. Like ladies of times less remote their great object was
not to be bored : for “ Dulness is an incurable malady,”
says the young widow in the “ Heptameron.” They had
many distractions every day, and the first and the last were
the services of the Church. They do not seem to have been
very strict about them, for the goodly company of story-
tellers in Margaret’s book got so much interested in their
story-telling that they kept the Monks waiting for more
than an hour for Vespers. The next evening when they
tried to be punctual they found the church empty; the
festive brothers had hidden behind a hedge to listen to the
stories that could so pervert their congregation.
It was the fashion to tell this kind of “Nouvelle” not
only in the pleasant meadows, but also in the drawing-rooms
of the Chateaux. Sometimes the pretty narrators varied
them by making acrostics and jeux de mots. Now it was
with their tongues, now with their needles. They stitched
devices for their friends and lovers. A big “ S ” embroidered
on a scarf stood for “Largesse”—an “S” barred by an
aiTow for “Fermesse.” When they were tired of their
tambour-frames they took to their viols and their lutes; or
they had singing lessons from the fashionable master, Albert
de Rippe; or they gossiped about the Court Chapel master,
Josquin des Pres, and his musical theory of the “ Verbe Colore”
and the stories he told them of the Vatican Choir. When
they were tired of all other occupations they sent for their
an oval silver basin, and the ceremony of putting on the little
fairy slippers, and the ceremony of dressing the hair
elaborately intertwined with pearls. When they went out they
wore diminutive masks to shield their complexions from the
sun. Like ladies of times less remote their great object was
not to be bored : for “ Dulness is an incurable malady,”
says the young widow in the “ Heptameron.” They had
many distractions every day, and the first and the last were
the services of the Church. They do not seem to have been
very strict about them, for the goodly company of story-
tellers in Margaret’s book got so much interested in their
story-telling that they kept the Monks waiting for more
than an hour for Vespers. The next evening when they
tried to be punctual they found the church empty; the
festive brothers had hidden behind a hedge to listen to the
stories that could so pervert their congregation.
It was the fashion to tell this kind of “Nouvelle” not
only in the pleasant meadows, but also in the drawing-rooms
of the Chateaux. Sometimes the pretty narrators varied
them by making acrostics and jeux de mots. Now it was
with their tongues, now with their needles. They stitched
devices for their friends and lovers. A big “ S ” embroidered
on a scarf stood for “Largesse”—an “S” barred by an
aiTow for “Fermesse.” When they were tired of their
tambour-frames they took to their viols and their lutes; or
they had singing lessons from the fashionable master, Albert
de Rippe; or they gossiped about the Court Chapel master,
Josquin des Pres, and his musical theory of the “ Verbe Colore”
and the stories he told them of the Vatican Choir. When
they were tired of all other occupations they sent for their